Life Uncut - Britt is back! 30 days of sex and Tall Poppies

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

BRITT IS BACK BABY and the cat is out of the bag! Britt has been off filming a brand spanking new reality TV show called the Challenge and we wish we could have told you sooner but the TV overlords made us sign NDA's and well, being sued doesn't sound like much fun... but Britt is back and she's her to tell us what she can!Steph Claire Smith is doing the 30 day intimacy challenge and now Laura and Matty J are the newest recruits.Tall Poppy syndrome is rife in Australian culture, we see it across media, social media, in workplaces and even in our own friendship group - the question is why do we do this and how do we recognise it and stop undermining other peoples achievements?then we get into the juicy topic of the day! We are joined by expert Dr Rumeet Billan who has undertaken a large study in tall poppy syndrome focused on women in the workplace.Today's episode is brought to you by Flight centre in celebration of their 40th Birthday. Book your holiday today by visiting Flight Centre hereIf you would like to buy a ticket to the live show, or get your pre order copy of WE LOVE LOVE - visit our website See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded in Yirrginji people country. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Brittany.

And she is back, baby. I am back. I am back in business. But you know what's weird? How long have I even been gone for? Two weeks? Who knows? Who knows?

I blacked out. I don't know what happened, but I'm back. I know. It has been three weeks. And let me just tell you, never ask me to lie for you again because it is not fun. Me having to be like, ooh, I don't know where she is. It's a mystery.

And every single one of you listening to this who were sliding into my DMs, like calling me a dirty fucking liar. I know. Were they really? I signed NDAs, so I can't do anything. Were they really? Yes. Okay, well, guys, so.

Look at how angry you get. Were they really? Because that's, I mean, that's gobsmacking to me. We would never, ever lie to you guys unless we had to. Well, I mean, we did, but like we would never do it on purpose. Unless we have signed with a company that's going to sue us, we're probably going to do it. So just a very brief summary.

You do have to sign NDAs. People in your life have to sign NDAs for this kind of stuff. So anyone listening. Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow it down. I feel like, Brittany Hockley, you're assuming that everybody knows where you've been and what you've been doing. Now, you have been gone from the podcast for three weeks.

Our beautiful producer, Keisha, who's laying on the bed over there, she has filled in on the Tuesday episodes Matt has been filling in on Thursday episodes and the reason for that is because I went and filmed a reality tv show we thought we were done with reality tv but apparently not we've come back for round three what I what I can say is it is not a love show because I know it's too soon it's always too soon I filmed a show called the challenge Australia hasn't done it before so I'm allowed to talk a little bit about what the show is now obviously I'm not doing any spoilers I'm not giving you any details so I feel like it's still a bit of a tricky one because filming has now finished the whole thing has been filmed

but you are very much under NDAs you can't say anything around like what has happened on the show correct and who would want to know that like people I think I don't ever want to know spoilers for anything movies tv shows reality shows because it takes the fun away anyway so I would never do that and i also want everyone to know that i genuinely have no idea when i first saw brit which was literally this morning this morning is the very first moment that we've seen each other in five weeks it was a it was a lovely reuniting moment it was was it as good for you as it was for me we ranged each other's arms we did a little roll around on the bed it got awkward it was right but i also said like very much i don't want to know the outcome of this so i will be finding

out and following along with the show at the same time that you guys are obviously you know i can gauge that you're kind of you seem well you seem happy you seem like what no broken limbs which I think is different to when you do a reality tv show that's based around love because you kind of come out of it feeling quite emotionally distraught and like you've been stretched thin whereas you seem very well put together for someone who has spent five weeks in a reality tv show world well thank you I did learn how to contour that's probably why I look well I learned some makeup tricks on the show where were you and why were you contouring I thought it was like I thought it has like an SAS slant to it so well okay firstly before we get into what

the show is about I just want to say one little thing very grateful for the team pulling together and you know allowing me the opportunity Laura I do trust you and the reason I'm not telling you is because I know what happens with those loose lips once you have one or two v-notes so that's why you're not knowing producer oh I don't trust myself so it's fine I don't want to fucking know producer geisha has been asking me for 24 hours now and uh she has got not one a little bit of information i said you're gonna have to watch along with it as well so what the challenge is is it's a show that he's been playing in america for i think something like 37 seasons it's very very big in the states they absolutely love it but australia has never done it it is like imagine

if sas amazing race survivor imagine if they all had a baby the people on the challenge are famous ish i mean yes um let's put famous in inverted commas famous ish there's like deep there's just well okay let's not even use the word famous there's people that have been on tv before that's what it is so it's a bunch of people that have been on all different shows big brother survivor the bachelor there's some athletes in there there's some people that just have profiles that haven't really been on a tv show so there's like a multitude of people that come together from all walks of life it's like a culmination of everything you go to a destination which i'm not going to say where it is and you just all live together and complete challenges

that you don't know what's coming so these are all different kinds of challenges you have to use your brain you have to put your body on the line you have to be fit but you have to have a social game like there are so many aspects to this show it's nothing like Australia has ever seen it was absolutely wild so okay in comparison to say like SAS for example where the challenges are really really intense but you don't actually get to see much of the people because the thing with SAS is like the contestants can't speak they can't actually show who they are character wise you have no personality on SAS no and you only have personality in so far as a redemption story so like when the mentors I can't remember what they call themselves whenever the people who are in

charge ask questions that's when you have the right to answer is it different to that in terms of like you can be your own person you can talk whenever you want to you can say or do whatever the fuck you want but then you also have to do these crazy challenges at the same time absolutely so you definitely it's like looking in a big brother it's watching a bunch of people live together and there's a lot of socializing there's a lot of hanging out chatting playing just being you and living there's that aspect so I reckon that will I mean I haven't seen it so I don't know but I reckon that'll probably be half of it and then there's wild challenges that's the other half so you're getting the best of both worlds and I think this is why it's so popular in America

because you love seeing people get pumped right you love seeing people get absolutely pushed to the limit but you want to see their personalities too so I think the show will hopefully do that well okay I have three questions one why did you want to do it I asked that I'm asking myself every day I looked it up and I thought this looks really cool I'm gonna get to do things outside my comfort zone and things that I'll only ever do probably once in my entire life so I thought what have I got to lose turns out you can lose a lot what's your second question okay what do you get if you win the show you win money so the winner wins money yeah boyfriend not a boyfriend no i like the outcome of my show i mean i think i won a pretty good prize but also

money is great i mean would i rather love or money uh no both i mean if you get love and money the bachelor should put a money prize on it actually because then people would never take it seriously you know i don't think they do anyway yeah that's true you get instagram followers well yeah so you win the money prize yep that's why everyone's competing because you don't go and do this stuff for fun for no reason. Like if there wasn't anything at the end, you would not want to be doing this. Did you find out how much that money prize was at the beginning or do they keep it ambiguous for the whole time? Ambiguous. Oh, okay. And then I have one more question. Did you win? Saddle Laura, moving on. Anyway, that's it. That's going to be airing at the end of the year guys,

I think. So I am going to absolutely 100% need a lot of your support when this happens. So I I hope everyone comes together. I hope all you lifers can have a laugh and can have fun watching this with me. At your expense. We will absolutely have fun at your expense. Yeah, you were laughing at me, not with me. No, but I feel like that's what we do on the podcast anyway. Okay, so I'm going to just jump in and say I am so glad that you are back.

Producer Keisha, who once again is sitting here on the bed, I have loved having you. It has been beautiful to have you step in on the podcast, but you have been very sorely missed, Brittany Harkley. and your laugh. We'll get to that in a second. But I feel like we should say a very big thank you to Flight Centre who has made this episode possible. And also looking out here at the beautiful vista because Britt and I, not only did we just come together for the very first time together and cuddle on the bed, we're in Cairns. Well, yeah, we're in Cairns. Keisha, Laura and

myself came to Cairns to record for a few days because it is Flight Centre's 40th birthday. Can you believe they've been around for 40 years? Left the kids at home, dumped them with Matt, got on a plane here I am and we have a few incredible days planned up here and this morning very very very early on three hours sleep producer Keisha and I got up and went hot air ballooning now I know this is a sore point for you Laura because you couldn't make it and you really wanted to come but block your ears but it was so beautiful okay so just to give you the reason why I wasn't there and produce Keisha and Brittany went and had this like beautiful romantic morning so I flew in today today being Monday and these guys got in here last night and I thought no no

I want to spend Father's Day with Matt so we had this really cute time but I was the one who was pushing to do hot air ballooning and it meant that you guys had to get up at 3 30 in the morning whilst I slept in but it was incredible like the sunrise this morning the weather the view everything was absolutely amazing and it's so nice to be here in this warmth when like Australia's just been raining I just like that like the two single girls went on a romantic hot air ballooning date this is what I thought right no offense to you Keisha but I was up there being like man when I get a boyfriend I'm coming back here I'm getting this hot air balloon I'm going to this hotel I'm coming back to Cairns but don't fret I've also planned something for you tomorrow

as well so please don't feel like you've missed out I have a really great little day planned for you and when I say I the flight center did it but I'm just going to pretend it's me and take it it's also like kind of going on a bachelor date where we always thank the bachelor but he didn't do anything yeah and that's exactly right thank you because we are here with flight center we do have a really great little bonus episode coming out for you tomorrow it's funny it is killer you're going to love it it is just our favorite part of every episode we are doing a completely accidentally unfiltered full of laughs all of your most embarrassing travel stories speaking of romantic dates there is something i'm putting this out here on the podcast to hold myself accountable to this

now so I love when you do this many of you have sent me recently over the last couple of weeks if you follow Steph Claire Smith you would know on their podcast they have been speaking about how Steph and her partner are doing the intimacy challenge right I can't tell you the amount of people who have listened to Matt and I do a podcast episode and talk about our lack of sex and therefore have now started sending me this it's apparently it's this 30-day challenge where you have to be intimate with each other every single day well yeah I mean you've been saying from day one that the only time you guys have sex is when you have a baby that's it i mean at least like okay i work i feel like we're not that bad no like once a week to once

every two weeks that's not that bad we just take the piss a little bit i mean matt likes to think it's once every six months but it's really once every week to two weeks and i feel like i feel like that became very very fucking clear after last thursday's episode but what we're gonna do is we're gonna do the 30-day intimacy challenge thanks to steph class smith you're gonna do it And we're going to see how that goes. I don't know if you're going to last. I'm going to be really tired. I think you could think of nothing worse.

Literally. We were going to start it on the 1st of September. It's now the 4th and we've had sex once. Matt was like, it's going great. You're like, how many times can we reset the intimacy challenge? I think we'll start mid-month. So, okay, let me, I have some questions. I want to know what the actual rules to this challenge are.

Do you have to have sex every day for 30 days? Do you just have to get in bed and like slip a cuddle? Just finger in? Do you have to just? Just one finger and for how long? And do you have to – like, does it have to come in and out a few times or can you just slip it in and be like – Or just go to sleep with it in there.

Don't move. I was sputtering. We were intimate. Did you feel like this was intimate enough or do you just have to get really close in their personal space? Like, what counts as – What is it? Kissing on the neck?

A little boob grab? What is it? What's the level? Okay, so this is not just – and I know that Steph – I've said Steph Gleeson so many times in one episode. I know that she's been talking about it a lot in her podcast, but this actually started from a TikTok challenge. Like, this has been – and, you know, we love –

Now that we're TikTokers, we love to get our content from there. Yeah, firstly, go follow Life Uncut Podcast. And, okay, it's a TikTok challenge. Apparently every day for 30 days you have to be sexually intimate with your partner. So you don't have to actually have sex, although I'm pretty sure that that's advised. But you could maybe give him a blowy or get fingered or whatever.

That's so – I just – my 36-year-old mum saying fingered is so weird. We don't have the energy for sex tonight. Just finger me. Just one finger for three seconds. Okay, so I have some questions for you. Maybe it could just be like a really deep make-out session for a while. So do you feel like for the 30 days you're going to start from the bottom

and work your way up? So maybe just one finger at the start. Then are you going to have like a little – no, sorry, we won't even start with that. First it will be like a kiss on the neck. No. Day two, kiss on the lips. Day three, deep, passionate, passion.

We're not just first dating for the first time. It's not like on day 30 we'll finally get to home run. Laura, there is – I will put money on it. There is no way you and Matt are going to have sex every day for 30 days. You have the same amount of confidence that Matt has. Because we're both very smart people. We know you very well. No, I think.

I think. Don't think too hard. I think it's doable. I just have to have not such a busy work schedule. And now that you're back, I feel like I can, you know, I've just done a lot of the workload because you've been gone. You can do the workload so I can have sex more. I feel like it's all going to even out in the wash.

Look, I have a few worries about this challenge. like exactly well like you and are an extremely fertile person no we are currently way too busy for one of those no we're not gonna no no this is not do you use protection how are you gonna know you can't just say no yeah we do we're really thorough with our protection it's called the pull-out method oh fail safe if anyone's listening don't take laura's advice for contraception pull out method you know what laura's tried the pull-out method twice look at how well that worked out that's what i'm gonna say it works very well every time until it doesn't work and results in two children yes exactly do not use the plan like i'm sorry but you reminded me of like a 16 year

old back in p sex ed you know how they're like that's what they would do yeah apparently if he goes on your back you can still get pregnant and we've learned this so many concerns about you okay great love that for you let me know when you start i know that we're making jokes out of this but this is serious we are going to do this 30 days i'm going to document it i want to tell you all about i want to text after everyone 30 days i'll give you an sms update every single day just give me that water emoji with the eggplant. If anyone else wants to subscribe to my update list, please leave your number here. I will send you an update every day, 30 days. It's going to start when we get back from Cairns. Okay. I love that for you. Well, I want to talk about something

else that I read that is a bit triggering for me right now. I'm trying to plan my sister's hen's party. So my sister, Sherry, she's getting married very, very soon before you, Laura, actually. I thought since you've been away for so long, one of her friends was doing it. The last I heard Sherry was like yeah I kind of took the job off Brit and someone else is doing it now that had to happen so I'm back now you're doing a fantastic job so I started planning it with a really good friend Georgia uh for a really good friend Sherry's and mine and then I went away and I really dumped that on Georgia so sorry if you're listening gee I was like I've got to go away can you take over this and I'll come back doing a great job but it is so stressful and I have one

thing that I can't decide if I do it or not I don't know if it's a thing anymore so I want to ask you also your hens is coming up too my hens is like not even a month away yeah so i don't know what's happening for it i'm not gonna tell you obviously okay but my question is are strippers a thing of the past like are strippers still a thing for hens or is that something anyone wants or does anymore because i'm on the fence now sherry if you're listening which i know you will be block your ears i'm still trying to decide i'm trying to decide if we do something fun like that and just have a laugh or if it's just tacky and done i don't know what the verdict is anymore does anyone ever actually want a stripper though like is anyone is it ever the bride who's like

yes get me a stripper or is it always the hens that like the bridesmaids that are like yes I want a stripper I actually think no one loves it for the fact as a stripper I think it's more the vibe it brings I think it brings this high energy of laughter and like you know like oh like I can't believe that's happening right now because I don't think the bride's ever like yeah give me a penis in the face before I get married like I don't think anyone thinks that this is actually a weird one and I think it's something that we covered a little bit the other week when we were talking about Tommy Lee but you weren't here for it but whilst you were on a social media ban hiatus which people probably don't know this you didn't even have your phone for the whole entire time

that you were filming no you have you have absolutely zero contact with the outside world you've been off the grid off grid so Tommy Lee and I'm telling you this for the first time but everybody else in Australia knows this Tommy Lee posted a full-blown dick pic to Instagram like pamela anderson's ex yeah and it stayed up live on instagram for eight hours it was his full entire dick i will show you it after uh he just wrote oops as the caption anyway it got into a much we got into a much bigger conversation around how we view male strippers and female strippers differently like how they're kind of the purpose of what they do is different and now i'm talking about this from a very heteronormative perspective and angle and lens obviously if you're a female

bride having a male stripper it's a very heteronormative thing to do but why is it that a male stripper is always a source of comedy it's always a source of like hilarity and like oh my god get it off everyone's screaming with their dick straws like why is it that but then a female stripper is always this like sexual sensual it has a very different feeling or vibe around it i think that's about the receiver so it's like the women that are receiving the show we don't view men in that situation to be like sexy and hot and turned on for some reason i'm speaking generally i don't know i don't know if it's just men are horny men are horn dogs corn dogs whatever you want to call them but i feel like men get like probably get genuinely like

turned on but the women that i know and this is i'm like obviously a blanket statement but all the women that i know that have ever had strippers or been at a place with strippers or a party with strippers none of them are turned on by it no and that's what i mean the actual the purpose of what a stripper represents in those situations is completely different like there's a different sentiment behind it do i think it's outdated just going back to your earlier question yes a bit i do i don't i would not want a stripper keisha can you cancel the strippers for laura's hands please immediately just call 1-800 hot stuff but this is also like no judgment to anyone who wants to get a stripper like i you know it's somebody who's willingly

as someone who's stripping they're willingly doing that job it's not objectifying them it's it's fun it's funny like for whatever reason do I want to I don't I just wouldn't know what to do with my hands like I don't need you there I don't want also I kind of think that there's a much bigger and maybe slightly more serious conversation around being a hen having a stripper when you don't want a stripper and they they rub themselves on you they get so close and up and on you and you don't really have the opportunity to be like i don't want this oh no you 100 if you're ever planning a hen's party with a stripper you 100 have to know that the bride is cool with it like you can't spring that on someone if you know they're going to be adverse

to it because that's not cool also just like i missed that whole thing but briefly touching back on tommy posting a dick pic you can't just do that like you can't just put your dick on instagram when people people don't want to go and see that penis on there this is three weeks ago this this I know, but I'm like, well, there's no consent there, Tommy. Welcome to 2022, Brittany. She's back. There is a lot of things that I need to catch you up on. Well, okay, so I probably won't get the stripper for Sherry.

Conversation decided. But the reason I started thinking about this, there is, I don't know if you've heard about it, but there was a bride in Australia that has just come out and said that her best friends, her bridesmaids, all grouped together to organise her hen's party. So what happened was, just say there were four bridesmaids, they all got a job to do each. You organise this, you organise this.

yeah many hands lighten the load yep so one of her best friends right and they were very very close like she's a bridesmaid besties for a long time her job was to organize the accommodation so she she got a lot of money from everyone about five thousand dollars and then just stopped replying to people in all the group texts and the girls were sort of like hey just checking in when we're booking in like you know trying to find out what's happening and there was just radio silence no one including the bride ever legend has it to this day heard from this girl again she ghosted the entire bridal party and the bride yep so they started everyone took all their money and ghosted them yeah they started to get worried so the other bridesmaids called the accommodation just to say

like hey just want to check all as well we're checking in on this date and they said oh we don't even have a booking for you so they this girl this best friend never even booked the accommodation took all of her friends money to the value of five thousand dollars blocked them all on social media and took off surely wild no i actually i can't believe this surely she's not like she must have died no she's not because they spoke to her mom so they they contacted this is a whole big tale a very tall tale they contacted the girl the thief's mom and the mom actually gave them all the money back without question so obviously she knew or believed it or she knows the daughter's gone AWOL gave them the five thousand dollars back and then they've just no

one has ever heard from the girl again like no one but surely with this if it's your best friend or someone who's in your bridal party you know where they live like you know how to find them it's different when a guy just goes to you and doesn't show up for dinner on a Thursday night like you know how to get in contact with someone who is your friend well they can't just ghost their entire friendship so unless she's gone Laura she's gone unless it was a bridesmaid you know how like some people invite like ask someone to be their bridesmaid but they don't even really know them that well they just don't have anyone to ask so they're like oh fuck you'll do I need someone well I did think of that but I delved deep and she said they've been friends for a

really long time it's really unusual I cannot work it out to be fair being a bridesmaid kind of sucks it's really expensive it is like maybe she was just recouping the cost what she didn't she didn't outlay anything she just she just okay maybe she already had my bridesmaid being a bridesmaid is so pricey anyway I thought it was wild it is okay moving on all right let's get into our favorite part of every episode and that is accidentally unfiltered now i have a real short and sharp one for you all so i think i'll go last no i feel like mine we're gonna end on it because it's just it's one sentence okay and it made me feel viscerally sick so i just want to make sure that you know in case it also makes you feel sick

you get to the end of this segment okay i am coming in because i just felt in my bones in my core that yours was going to be like a sick one so i have gone for a really light innocent one i like that you try and pretend like maybe it's intuition but actually we just have been doing this for three years so you know me this is something that i think happens to everyone at some stage so i went to a bath house as i was leaving i was feeling super zen super happy but you know you've been steaming all day you've been in water all day you don't look your best I decided to just chuck on my shirt thought I'll get dressed properly when I get back home as I was walking out not feeling that great a man smiled at me cute cute kept walking a little bit

further another man smiled at me okay well I mustn't be looking as bad as I thought as we walked down the road a bit more my friend turned to me and started to scream with laughter my shirt had got caught in my jacket leaving my entire naked boob exposed no bra nothing no wonder these men were smiling at me turns out i did look terrible but my titty was out no girl you look great why didn't anyone tell her her entire boob was out oh because it's like you know you hope that someone tells you you got something in your teeth but some people just sit there and stare at it and don't tell you that your titties out you know i'll never forget this one moment back on the bachelor so many moons ago at a cocktail party now you guys know the bachelor all these dresses

are very precarious i was sitting talking to nick for a very long time with a whole nipple out just out just like pointing at him staring him in the face no one told me none of the girls told me he didn't tell me the crew didn't tell me why didn't the camera crew tell you this well they were laughing but they didn't want to interrupt the moment because they could have just like zoomed in on my face and cropped the boob out but no one told me there is literally an entire team who is sitting inside like an ops room watching this on camera watching your tit out yeah they probably filed that away the amount of times that you've gotten your boobs are unnecessarily unprovoked doesn't surprise me brit i mean even just before we started recording brit flashed me and i was

like why don't we have a hr department you say this like this makes me sound really bad it should guys i don't just flash people but like maybe i was getting changed no she just flashed me i have video evidence we were recording and she just lifted her shirt up and showed me her boobs i didn't ask for it because i'm wearing a little white top and i forgot to put a bra on so i thought that was funny also we're all friends don't make it sound like it's not essential oh no i enjoyed it they're very good okay i have a disguise this fucking this made me feel unwell okay hit me i just vomited after swallowing we laughed it off and he was really sweet and caring but i'm still mortified this is the whole is that it she she gave him a blowy and then she

swallowed and look i would do this too because i'm not it makes me feel sick when i think about it so she swallowed it down and then it all came back up and let me tell you this i don't know if i've ever shared this on the podcast before i'm not a swallower can't do it and so i feel this in my bones will not swallow hashtag we'll get that tattooed on my ass i think that's an exclusive you've told me that before but you've never said on the podcast we'll not do it ever so never what if on this 30 days of intimacy matt all matt what if matt okay what if matt said if you just do it once you don't have to have sex it feels like it gets stuck in your esophagus Like it clings to the walls.

No, I'm not talking about it anymore. Well, I reckon whoever you're dating is unhealthy. If it's sticking to the wall, it's not supposed to stick to the wall. Well, it's not water soluble, so it does stick. The whole reason why it sticks is so it stays inside your uterus. That's the whole point of it. So it sticks and just slides down your esophagus real slow. Do you know what I'm thinking?

Can't do it. Do you remember those toys when you were a teenager or when we were younger and they were like the slapstick and they were really stretchy and you used to flip them to the wall and it used to stick on the wall like glue? Yeah. That's what I'm imagining right now with the sperm going down the throat, like sticking to the wall. Okay, well, now that everybody is equally as disgusted as I am, sorry,

we should probably tell you what today's podcast episode is about. Well, yeah, I just definitely learnt more about you than I needed to know. I'm sure I've shared that with you before. Not in such gross visual detail. Why else do you think someone wouldn't swallow? Well, I've never thought about it sticking to the wall of your esophagus, like like walking its way down the wall like as little hands but do you have to like have a little drink afterwards what do you normally do i don't do it but see so many people are not followers

and we all need to unite should we start a union together you're either a swallower or you're a not swallower no i don't think so i think there are people that would do both depending on the person the day the time the situation the type of sex yeah you're not one or the other wait so some people are just an occasion swallower yeah you're today's today's day you can be malleable you can be a malleable swallower for sure no like a situational swallower is it relationship swallower like depends on the person i think so oh no blanket rule no okay tell us what the episode's about all right well with that all out of the way and thank god it's out of the way let's get into the chat on tall poppy syndrome so on today's episode we wanted to talk about

something that i'm pretty sure a hell of a lot of us have experienced or we have been guilty of doing it. It is called tall poppy syndrome. And in the very same way that something like imposter syndrome has a name, sometimes you may experience tall poppy syndrome, or you may be doing it to somebody else in your life and be completely unaware that that's actually what you're doing. Now, I feel like we should tell you what it is in case you don't know, but also I wanted to give you kind of the backstory on the why we wanted to do this. You might remember recently we interviewed hamish blake and we were talking about his fucking excellent wife the incredible super successful ridiculously successful zoe foster blake who is the founder and creative

director of go to skincare she's also an absolute millionaire and a boss babe she's an author she's written tv series like this it's almost one of those things that you're like what can't you do yeah like it's a little bit annoying that she's so successful but also like is it annoying laura is that tall poppy syndrome? Okay. But the thing we talked about on that episode is we talked about how insidious the media can be in how they write articles and how they use headlines to frame the way you think about someone. So I'm going to give you an example of this. And the reason why tall poppy syndrome came up for us this week on this podcast episode is because this article really made me go, okay, it's time for us to do the episode. This is the headline.

ladies who lunch multi-millionaire beauty entrepreneur zoe foster blake wears four thousand seven hundred and forty five dollar outfit as she enjoys a meal in double bay with her equally stylish best pal lisa whipfley seems like a pretty unassuming headline from the daily mail however well there's a lot of unnecessary information in there totally what this is when you read this you think instead of going oh yeah zoe foster blake super successful of course she would own amazing clothes I would too if I owned a multi multi multi-million dollar company you read this and you think wow how unrelatable is she because she wears a $4,745 outfit out for lunch well it's the subliminal message that are in these headlines so exactly what you just said Laura it's

not the headline saying let's all hate on Zoe Foster Blake because she has way more money than you'll ever have it doesn't say that but what it makes people feel subliminally is oh wow like she's wearing this amount of money to just go to lunch this is so unrelatable and subconsciously we start to dislike these people now i'm not saying we like us but this is what the media want us to think when we look at a headline like this and the thing is and the reason why this is so relevant is like tall poppy syndrome isn't something that just exists in the media but before we go any further let me explain to you for anyone who's listened to this so far and it's like you said tall poppy 15 times and what the fuck is that so the definition for tall poppy syndrome is this

The tall poppy syndrome is a cultural phenomenon in which people hold back, criticize, or sabotage those who have, or are believed to have achieved notable success in one or more aspects of life. So basically it's like when anybody, and not anybody, it doesn't happen all the time, but I feel like we've all felt this in different aspects of our lives. But maybe when you have succeeded in part of your career, or you've done something that you're super fucking proud of, and instead of your success being met with jubilation from your friends with excitement with congratulations it's met with potentially a criticism or a question or a put down poppies like the plant the flowers they grow at the same time right and if one grows so

they should all be the same height if one of the poppies grows too tall they chop it back down to size now this is where this analogy and metaphor come from we don't want to see as a population we want to all be equal but unfortunately we don't live in that society so when we see someone growing taller or doing something that we're not doing or achieving something that we're not doing we want to cut them back down to size we want to take them back a peg or two and that's where it originates from i feel like as australians it's something that very much permeates australian culture so tall poppy syndrome the word for it it originated in australia however of course it is experienced all over the world we are speaking to an expert in the field her name is dr ramit

billen and she is from canada but she's done extensive study into the actual topic of tall Poppy Syndrome. However, the interesting thing about this whole conversation is that the name for it actually originated in Australia. And that is because overall and overarching, it is a very Australian thing to do. But Australia is known for it throughout the world. And if you just think about now, think about TV shows that you watch, right? Let's just like take this back a notch and make this very colloquial. You look at American TV shows and they are so confident and they are so cocky in who they are but it's it's lovable and people love them for it it's welcomed their ambition is welcomed their confidence is welcomed when you now think about

an Australian show for example or Australian media if we see somebody that walks up to the stage and starts to rattle off their achievements and what they're doing and how how much they've done we want to hate them straight away and I feel like it's something maybe this is something that we've just grown up with and it's ingrained in our culture. Well, do you know what? We see it as a type of arrogance, but I mean, you hit the nail on the head with that. It is entwined in our culture. So like when you think of America, America's big positioning is the American dream and the American dream makes space for individual success. Like that is the ethos of America. Whereas the ethos of Australia is all based around mateship. That is so intertwined in this like

camaraderie in all for one, but one for everyone. And so I guess in saying that it's almost like we have been conditioned in a way to think that well you don't don't be too good don't sit too far above the rest and now I think it's really important with this conversation though and we did put it out to you guys we've got some very interesting polling facts that came in over Instagram where thousands of you have let us know where and how you've experienced this but I do think it's interesting to cover off that I think that there is overt tall poppy syndrome that there are people who will undercut someone's achievements with real intention because they're either motivated by jealousy or they're spiteful that they feel like they were entitled to that promotion

whatever the motivating factor is there's a very intent driven type of tall poppy syndrome that can happen but then I also think that there is a completely unintentional which can be interpreted in the exact same way like often we might instead of just reveling in our friends successes we might question their success or we might challenge them on something without intentionally meaning to criticize or put down but in doing so it belittles them well I've definitely like I will put my hand up I've definitely wanted to cut somebody down before internally like I would never go and do it to somebody or say someone make them feel bad but it's internalized I have definitely in the past seen friends or other people that are in a similar position achieve something that I haven't

and you're like why the fuck was that not me part of me is like well why the fuck like they're not better than me like just things inside my head that at the time I didn't think was anything and it was obviously coming from a place of jealousy which is a very normal human feeling like every single human is going to feel this but it's what you do with that and then when we started looking to tall poppy syndrome more it can be like you just said Laura it doesn't have to be malicious you can just be doing it internalized so only in the last two weeks this has happened and this is something I said in my head about someone else's success I just said to myself wow well they just got lucky didn't they but I don't think it is luck this person probably

worked really really hard and he's very deserving but inside I was like oh well that was like it's definitely not because they're better than me they just got lucky and I just thought I didn't know I was doing it until I did the research on this and I thought wow like that is just something that I need to even recheck and just be like great they're better than me well I think part of the thing that was so interesting for me is like when we did put it out to you all and to ask like where you've experienced it in your lives. So many people said work. I think that's a pretty obvious and clear cut environment. So many people said friendships and family. And then I was thinking like, when have I, like, when have I been the person to bring someone down intentionally or

unintentionally? And we were actually, I was just talking to producer Keisha and you brought about this before we started recording and a while back, and this is, was a very unintentional example of, of tall poppy syndrome where sometimes I think we do it and we can criticize someone or what we're saying can be deemed as a criticism without the intention being that. So a while back producer Keisha, she'd been working so hard on another podcast that she released. It's called not an overnight success. The day that it was published, like, you know, the, her very first episode was with Hugh Jackman and she came and she was like, I'm so excited. Like my first podcast episode of this new podcast. And like podcasting doesn't seem like it takes a lot of time and effort.

it just seems like brit and i we just fucking rock up and we talk shit let me tell you we do do that but there's a lot of time and effort in it too there is so much that goes into creating a new podcast there's so much not just scripting but in terms of like how you actually going to bring the show together what segments there's so much show planning that goes around a podcast it's a huge huge deal a lot of behind the scenes yeah and quiche had said she was like oh you know that the podcast is out and she was so excited and i was like oh that's amazing how many downloads did you get? And even just by asking that question, it took the excitement away from the achievement of starting a podcast and made it all around a download or monetary value, which isn't a

completely unintentional thing to do. And I think it's so normal when someone might start a new business or they might start a new venture. You ask like, oh, like, well, how's that product been selling? Well, how's this thing? And I think it's okay to stay curious, but also really checking yourself whether what you're asking implies actually you're not that successful. Because in saying that in me going instead of being like fucking that's awesome congratulations me saying how many downloads did you get unless that number is really high what I'm doing is I'm implying that it's not successful yes and I remember this I remember you asking the question and inside I was like yikes you went straight for the kill I remember just thinking like and I know that you

didn't mean it but it was just one of those little throwaway comments and it's funny because you don't clock it and I didn't and I didn't clock it then and I didn't clock it I only literally clocked it when I was reading through this stuff and I was like fuck I think I do this and it's because for me like because I know that I'm so like I'm so driven and I'm so download driven and I'm so when it comes to running a business which I obviously run several I'm like okay what does that look like from a monetary perspective whereas like that can be incredibly undermining to somebody else and I was like Keisha I'm so sorry I didn't mean to do it but it's something that we can do very often without it being intent-driven is what I'm trying to get to the

point of. Well, we did put it out to you guys to get some statistics on when you've experienced it or have you done it to somebody, what that looks like, what you've done as a result. But to kick that off, I just wanted to read you some stats. Now, these stats are a few years old now. They're from 2018. But the reason I wanted to read them to you is because they were from LinkedIn. So LinkedIn, as we know, is a business website. I mean, clearly they've got to be true if they're from LinkedIn, right? Yeah, just as true as TikTok. Yeah. So this was from LinkedIn and it was actually from CGU Ambition Index. That is the company that did the research and published it on LinkedIn. So I'm just going to throw some numbers at you here. So a staggering 75% of Australians said

that they are ambitious, but only 6% said ambition is our greatest asset. Now based off of this survey, 68% of Australians believe that Australia has a culture of negativity towards ambition. So So 68% of us are saying we don't view ambition as a good thing. We see ambition as a dirty word. If somebody, and if you think about that, if somebody comes up to you and says, I'm so ambitious, what's your immediate thought? You're like, oh, calm down, mate. Like you, like your thought is like, there's like, there's an arrogance to it, isn't it?

It's like when someone's like, I'm so ambitious, you almost think, God, this person's going to be too much. This is going to be, they're going to be a handful and they're going to be a bit exhausting in some aspects. obviously you want someone who's ambitious in the workplace, but you don't want someone who is so ambitious that they overshadow everybody else. Well, then seven in 10 reported that they don't talk about their ambitions because they're too scared of being labeled a bragger. Up to 9 million Australians have thought about starting a business, but just over 6% have actually done it.

So in other words, our attitude towards ambition is literally stopping people from starting a business because A, we don't want other people to view us negatively. And we're so worried about what our peers and family members and people that are important to us are going to think, or even strangers are going to think about us, that we literally don't go and chase our dreams. That to me is crazy. I think everybody could probably relate to this. How many people out there, not everyone, but I'm sure there's so many people. How many people have had this experience? You've had an idea to start a business or you've had an idea to start a project and maybe it seemed, yeah, it's like, it is daunting. It's a new project. It's really scary.

Not everybody makes it. And you've expressed that to someone close to you, whether it's a family member or a friend. And instead of them being like, yeah, fucking go for it. Instead of that being met with instant excitement about the fact that you have this ambitious idea, it's met with all the reasons why it could fail. And so what they're saying is that you're not going to be that person that rises above. You're not going to be that small minority. It's not worth taking a risk because you're not going to be successful. And I think if we all allowed ourselves to be held back by other people's opinions, literally nothing would ever, ever get done and no one would ever be successful but I think it's really important to be super aware about where this

criticism is coming from and why someone is saying these sorts of things to you because it could very much be the fact that the reason why someone is criticizing you or they're saying oh don't do that because you know it's going to cost so much money it's never going to work it comes from their own fear of failure it comes from the fact that they don't think that they could succeed in that moment something else I wanted to talk about in terms of this whole conversation that I found really fucking interesting and something I also find so confusing is when we think of tall poppy syndrome I think we often think about it as though our peers and it's the people who are on the same level of us that we're succeeding above criticizing us and trying to hold us back you know because it

reflects poorly on them something that I think a lot of people experience in the workplace and they haven't been able to put a name to it is tall poppy syndrome where actually it's your manager or someone in a position of power undermines you maybe they put you down in a certain way maybe they take your ideas and claim ownership of it or maybe it's some sort of criticism or remark or that makes you feel inferior when you know actually you're doing a fucking great job of that well yeah that could be because they view you as a threat maybe you're up and coming maybe they're worried that oh I'm going to be replaced soon I'm not doing a good enough job and this young gun is doing a really great job so I need to cut them down now and put them in their place

so they don't try and take my place and don't you think that that though that is such a confusing form of where this can come to play because I think you know we see our managers as being somebody who cares about our career progression that they're people who are supposed to help you move throughout a company or move throughout a workplace and you think that they have your best interests at heart but so often you are actually competition for your managers you are actually competition in the workplace and that's where that can become really confusing so this is I mean we just touched on there that you think is really prominent in the workplace people from equal lesser and above we know is all categories where I see it a lot too and I'm sure everyone does but

it's from people you don't even know so we see this happening a lot with keyboard warriors on social media this could be people in the public eye it could be an athlete it could be any sort of a person that is posting on a public forum I saw an example of it literally today that just like it made my blood boil a little bit you guys know that this is just an example the challenge was announced today and they released a cast list did we know that brittany are you on the challenge yes so well one of the this i mean this is not about me this is about another cast member this is a comment that i saw on a website right they put the cast list up and somebody commented about one of the people this is just a stranger somebody commented saying oh how desperate always for

attention this person needs to just go away mind your own business kind of thing like what you know we don't want to see you anymore it was so unnecessary and I thought why would you go out of your way to go and write this about someone when all they've done literally all they've done is gone on an adventure they've said yes they've gone outside the box they've taken an opportunity that was presented to them and our immediate reaction and of course there are lots of great reactions which is amazing but this is what we see so often on social media the tearing down of other people that are just trying to do their best life they're trying to chase their dreams yeah they're ambitious they're trying to not worry about what anyone else thinks but there are so

many people that are coming at them literally wanting to chop them off at the knees but do you think it also plays into that feeling I think we'll get into so many reasons also Ramit who is incredibly experienced in this field goes through all the different motivating factors that can make us do that but don't you think it comes from this real place of like somebody's motivated in that they see somebody else what somebody else is doing and and it's so far from where their life is or it's so far from what they have achieved or what they maybe have for themselves that it's this I think jealousy ties into it but it's this lack of it's this feeling of like well if you're so successful or if you're doing something that sits so far outside the norm for me then what what does

that mean for my life how does that make my life look in comparison I do think that comparison and culture plays a big part into this. I do think internalized misogyny also plays a huge part into this. There's a lot of crossover between the three. Absolutely. And we see it so much in female, especially female workplaces, in female friendship groups. Well, we put it out to you guys, the listeners, we did some polls because you know, we love a poll here. I feel like it's very important to do your thorough research. 100%. And Instagram, it doesn't sound like it's thorough research, but there was 8,000 of you who answered this poll. Yeah, there were a huge amount of people. So 65% of you of the 8,000 said that you have

experienced this in the past. 26% said you've experienced it in the workplace, 24% in friendship groups, and 50% have experienced it in both. That's a lot of people. Yeah, but also the part of this that I found so interesting is that 64% of you admitted to being the one to actually cut someone down. Like 64% of you listening have said, yeah, I've absolutely done it and maybe even after listening to the things that we discussed earlier there would be more of you now that would go oh yeah fuck maybe I have done it but unintentionally done it as well which is why we wanted to do the episode we want to bring some awareness to this and I don't think women and men in the public eye in workplaces anywhere should be feeling like they can't chase

their dreams because they're too scared that somebody's going to want to bring them down or gossip behind their back or make up rumors or be malicious in some way because of a level of jealousy. And I guess the real reason for that more than it just making someone feel bad about themselves, like obviously, which is exactly what it does. And we're going to get into a couple of the indicating factors as to how someone would react in this situation. But also from in terms of like a workplace or employment perspective, by not allowing any one person to succeed or like by wanting to bring people back down to the same level, it's such a counterintuitive way of growing a business, right? You want people to be super successful, individually successful, because then

that can also be a hugely motivating factor to make everybody else work harder, to make everybody else want to achieve more. Whereas if you have everybody working at the same level of productivity and no one wants to excel and no one wants to succeed, then we've all worked in those fucking offices. I mean, what springs to mind is like my friend who used to work for a bank and she was like, everybody just kind of did the bare minimum. Everyone just hit their quota because that's all they had to do in order to like be a good employee. Whereas like they didn't like people who would go over and above and massively smash their targets and do incredibly well because it would obviously reflect that the rest of the team weren't working that hard well

that's when you hear the comments like oh they're an ass kisser they're kissing the boss's ass when it's not really they're just they're just stoked to doing be doing their job so we asked you guys how you deal with it if you have experienced it and we basically got three main responses like you know they all varied a little bit there were three main categories the first one was to cut out the people who did this to you so the responses were sort of I avoided that friend from that point forward I removed that person from my circle we're no longer friends I distanced myself I quit my job basically just like I aborted mission and left when you think about this happening in a friendship group is so fucking problematic because like especially if someone has done it and are

doing it to you but they're doing it unintentionally obviously if someone's doing it intentfully and they're trying to bring you down like fucking cut that person move on you've got much better people and things in your life but if you've got a friend who's just quite negatively geared and I think we all know that person who's just a bit of a fucking Debbie Downer and you say something and they're like oh yes but what if this happens like that person might need to be reminded that actually their negativity about or their constant criticism about your success or whatever it is is exactly this thing and the only reaction that some people have is to go I don't want to be friends with you anymore because i don't feel good about myself the second one was i worked

harder to prove myself and used it to further my success so the responses were like i upped my game and became even more successful i realized it was from a place of jealousy from them i ignored it and kept pushing on so it's more like a motivating factor so you can either i'll show you yeah cut them or you can be like cool this is going to drive me to do better and be better yeah the third one was it made me feel really upset i stopped sharing my achievements or i downplayed them so things like I changed my behavior I downplayed my achievement and made me feel really left out and upset that my friends weren't happy for me I tried to minimize my success I had intense self-doubt and social withdrawal I stopped sharing my opinions even though others do these

are the three categories what do you think you fall into I think for me like I reckon I'm number two when I work harder yeah when I've experienced this in my life where people have said that you know and I had this I will never ever forget when I started Tony May my ex-boyfriend his best friend at the time who was a really successful businessman and I really looked up to him also love it because men often like to mansplain how to do business even if they've never worked in retail before so I remember sitting down with him and I had said oh you know I've started this jewelry label and I'd been doing it for a couple of years by them but it wasn't my sole business I still worked another job in order to funnel money into to set it all up it was a side hustle it was my side

hustle but I knew I wanted it to be my full career right and I had just recently won if anyone knows the Tony Bay story but I'd won a launch your label competition I was so fucking excited I remember sitting at dinner with him this one day and I said to him I won this launch your label competition like I'm gonna have a I'm gonna have a shop in Westfield and the shop in Westfield at the time was only a four-week stint and he said to me he goes oh he's like you know it's really great that you'll get a taste for it but like you know it's it's okay to just have a hobby it's probably important to keep your job it's important to keep your job and I was like fuck do you know what I've already quit my job but it was just such a well you've cut me down before I've even tried I haven't

even had the opportunity and it's it really stuck with me and I remember sitting there and and him saying that to me and I had this moment of like I'm gonna fucking show you I'm gonna show you you just watch this buddy but honestly this is about eight years on and I still think of him every time I have a massive success with Tony May I'm like remember when he told me that that was just going to be my hobby well you showed him Laura yeah fuck you but I think you can let it go now no but like I think that some people can draw on these things as a motivator and some people draw on them as it's a killer for them you know it stops them from being able to achieve I would be probably a mix of two and three like I would work harder always because I am driven but I am

you ambitious though? Don't tell anyone. But then number three is you feel upset. You don't want to talk about it anymore. And you feel like you can't discuss things with people. So I'll be a mix of the two. I think ultimately it is something that so many of us experience and we know what it is when we're experiencing ourselves and we're being the ones being cut down. But I do think that we can all be guilty of doing it in so many different ways as well. And I guess this really being conscious of what you're consuming when it comes to the media, when you're reading headlines, when you're being persuaded to feel a way about a person or when you start to question someone's integrity as well.

I think it's really that you have to ask yourself where this is coming from and why you feel that way. Look, we could talk about this for a very long time and I'm glad we spoke about it on both ends of the spectrum when we have been victims of it and when we've been the perpetrator because everyone I think in life is gonna be on both sides.

But I think it's time we speak to an expert on the field. We have Dr. Ramit Bill in here. Now, Dr. Ramit has dedicated a very, very large portion of her life to researching tall poppy syndrome and how that affects women in the workplace. So let's talk to Dr. Ramit. Dr. Ramit Billen is a speaker and author who got her PhD in Toronto, Canada, and led a groundbreaking national research study on tall poppy syndrome. Now, Dr. Ramit, thank you so much for joining us.

We've spoken a little bit around how tall poppy syndrome can be a very intentional and quite malicious thing to do to someone else. But in reality, how does it present itself in more subtle ways? We asked this question when we did the survey, we wanted to know, you know, who is this happening to? Who was doing the cutting? How were poppies being cut down? And we asked if it was directly or indirectly, and the answer was both, right? So it could be that they're attacked for it. Maybe someone says something that might be condescending, or it could be that they're now ignored. They're now silenced, right?

We always talk about, you know, we need to invite everyone to the table, but the question is what happens when they get there? Are they silenced, right? Are they attacked because of their success or achievement? So you're absolutely right. It might not be as overt, but it does happen. It can happen through microaggressions

where you can be so well-intentioned, right? You know, you want to say congratulations to someone. Oh, that's fantastic. You got the promotion. That's right. they were looking for a woman to fill the role. And even though your intentions are in the right place, we want to congratulate the other person, you know, that's fantastic. Oh, yeah, they were looking for a woman to fill the roles. That actually minimizes that individual and their

qualification. So do you think women experience it more than men do? We know anecdotally, everyone experiences it. Regardless of how you identify, everyone experiences, well, not everyone, most people, because some people have not experienced tall poppy syndrome, but most people experience it regardless of how we identify. Now we focus on women in the workplace specifically because I wanted to learn more about those experiences. So I do have data to support that women experience it in the workplace. I know anecdotally that men experience it as well, but I don't have the data to support it. Do you think that there's any, and I mean, like, even if it is off your anecdotal experience, do you think that there's something in the way

that women treat each other within the workplace or even within their own friendship groups that has some link towards internalized misogyny around how we view each other as competition, how there is this scarcity mindset around roles. You've nailed it again, because here's the thing, we wanted to look at who was doing the cutting as well. And I went into it thinking, okay, it's kind of women bringing women down because those were the stories I was hearing. And that myth debunked because it was both men and women that were doing the cutting. But where there was a difference was in the roles that men had versus women and who was doing the cutting. So men in C suite or supervisor roles, they were more likely to do the cutting, whereas it was women in the

peer colleague or direct report roles that were doing the cutting. So I don't know if there's that competition piece that's in there, but we did ask that question of why do you think this happens? Why do you think that poppies are being cut? And scarcity mindset came up as one of the top five reasons. It's this idea that the pie is only this big, that, okay, if you get a piece of that pie, that means less pie for me. But this proverbial pie, it's not fixed. But that's that scarcity mindset. It's I'm not going to be happy for you because that means it's less for me. What were some of the other reasons that you found that people really experienced this or why it evolves either personally or in a workplace?

So the other items that came up were jealousy, envy, racism, and sexism. I looked at the impact on the individual that was experiencing tall poppy syndrome and it impacted their self-confidence. It impacted their negative self-talk. They engaged in imposter syndrome. So what's interesting is they internalized when they were being cut down, but when asked the question of why do you think it happens, they were able to say, okay, it's because that person is jealous or envious, or they might be

racist or sexist, or they have that scarcity mindset. So they knew it didn't have anything to do with them, but when it happened, they internalized it and it impacted themselves and how they felt about themselves. So I thought that was really interesting that, you know, I can identify all these different reasons as to why it happens. And Hey, guess what? That has nothing to do with me but yet I take it so personally when it does happen to me. I guess it can be a really confusing time when you are in a position where you think you're really deserving of a promotion or a pay rise or whatever that is and somebody else gets it over the top of you. Are you allowed to have these feelings? Should you be burying these feelings? Is this tall poppy

to feel anger and disappointment and to be upset in this situation? First we have to recognize that it's okay. It's okay to feel that, oh, you know what? I really wanted that role and I deserved it. And then I think in that situation, we try to ask the recruiters or the HR people for feedback. You may have been more qualified for that role. Let's go with that scenario. But the other individual may have gotten that role for various different reasons. There may be biases in the hiring process. There are nepotism. There may be so many different reasons as to why that individual got that role versus you what we don't want to do is discount our own qualifications if we didn't get it and then we also have to kind of differentiate was I being tall poppy by not

getting that role or did that person genuinely deserve it and we won't know those answers until we ask for feedback and I mean I do some training on bias awareness and the recruitment process is riddled with biases from the interview process all the way to offering and onboarding and so on and so it is a nuanced example but in the study we had almost two groups of people in the open ended comments where there's one group of people that said I was tall poppied I didn't get the promotion and then the other group was I got the promotion but then I was tall poppied because I got the promotion I was ignored I was silenced and so there's so many different ways that this could go but the study was fascinating in that it did show two groups of people experiencing it in

different ways, whether they got the job or the promotion or they didn't. Why do you think tall poppy syndrome is such a problem? And why is it something like, I mean, to dedicate time and research into it, to know that it's affecting so many people, but why is it such an issue in not just our workplace, but in our personal lives? I think there is a lot of competition and competition is not a bad thing. Unhealthy competition. When we are cutting down others, when we're walking over others in order to get what it is that we want, I think that plays a huge role. I think fear also plays a huge role where if I don't do all these things, I'm afraid I'm not going to get that promotion, right? I don't care who I have to cut in the process. There are many different

reasons that competition piece is a big one, insecurities, and especially with filters and social media and how great everyone's life looks. And when we compare ourselves, I think that feeds into it as well and then the scarcity mindset right we got to rethink how big that pie is but sometimes that scarcity mindset starts from when we're very very very young right it starts in the home where perhaps parents are comparing you to other children and again competition isn't a bad thing it's the unhealthy competition that we want to be very careful about what do you think if somebody's experiencing tall popper syndrome whether it's in their workplace whether it is in their friendship group and they feel like, and maybe it's not as overt, maybe they haven't

been able to kind of put a finger on what it is that's making them feel inadequate, but it's this, it's a criticism or it's a, you know, a subtle cut down. What can someone do in those instances who feels as though their achievements are being undermined? And so there are a couple of things. If you're comfortable actually addressing it head on with the person that's doing the cutting, there is a formula that you can use. And it comes from Dr. Crystal Regis from the Harvard Business School, where, you know, if you want to share with someone they've said something that was a bit offensive, you A, start with the facts. You said this. You share your intention. You know, it actually came across in this way. And then you open it up to

dialogue. Is that what you intended? Because the person that we believe is cutting may actually not be aware that they've said something that is offensive or that they are actually downplaying the achievements. So if we can address it head on, fantastic. In most cases, I would suggest that people don't feel comfortable addressing it head on. And if you're not able to have that conversation with someone else, do talk about it with others. Because I think that we hold it in inside, whereas another person who's objective can give us their kind of objective opinion. Because if we don't talk about it, then that's the thing, it builds up. And then there's resentment. And then anything that person says, we're going to take it in a different way. So if we can deal with it

head on, that's what we want to do. If we can't, we don't want to hold it inside. We do want to talk about it and we want to distance ourselves from it. When it happens, it's not to take it personally. We can label it now. I'm being tall poppied, right? When we label it, we distance ourselves from it. It's like, okay, that's tall poppy syndrome. That's happening because of X, Y and Z, this doesn't have to do with me. This is that person's stuff. And so distancing ourselves, labeling it, calling it out, all of these things can be helpful. Dr. Rumi, thank you so much for coming and being part of the podcast, for sharing your research and your experience in top-up syndrome. Can you let everybody know where they can find you, how they can get in contact with

you or follow for any more information? Absolutely. And thank you to the both of you for having me on and especially from Toronto, different time zones. It's been such a pleasure. It's funny because we're talking about social media and I actually don't have Instagram or Facebook. I am on LinkedIn. I sometimes use Twitter, but you can find me on LinkedIn and more information on my website at Ramit.com. Thank you for having me. All right, guys, that is it from us. And you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet our highlight and our low light of each and every week and Brittany Hockley I'm so glad that you're back and you can go first okay my suck is that probably that to get home recently

on my flight I had literally three days worth of flying I went to four countries in three days this is how it was just the way shut up I did see you in a pool in LA I did not feel sorry for you so do you know what I did oh this was my suck I went to LAX airport the busiest airport thinking my flight was at 11 a.m so LAX Labor Day weekend the busiest weekend so I went hours early right I got there at maybe 7 a.m I went to check in and I couldn't see my flight on the board and I was like oh my god am I at the wrong terminal because LAX is huge and I was like I'm at the wrong terminal I'm gonna have to get a bus somewhere I went to another terminal couldn't find my I was like what is happening so I went to the information desk and I've never had to go to an information

desk before i went to the information desk and i said excuse me i can't see my flight anywhere but it says i'm in the right terminal this is my terminal i don't understand and they're like who are you flying with i told him the carrier and he's like well that doesn't make sense show me your ticket so he passed me the ticket i know where this is he goes well you're here about 17 hours early i was like what he's like you're flying at p.m so it's like 11 p.m so i was there at 7 a.m at lax with all my i was like you are kidding me do you know i had a fucking bone to pick with you because you had texted me and you were like i only have 1.5 hour layover in la you were like and it was very dramatic and then i saw you on social media in a pool and that's what

happened i was like i feel like i have i'm being gaslit i'm gaslit pretty hockley oh no so i was and because you have all your luggage so i said do you know what i i don't i've never been to an airport lounge i've been to an airport lounge once and i was like okay i have 15 hours here so i asked information man I said well because there's no on this side of LAX there's not even there's like one cafe you can't even sit down people sitting all over the floor and I was like I can't be here for 17 hours I said is there anywhere I could just like try and pay to get into a lounge so I could sit down and have my luggage safe he's like there is absolutely nothing on this side so I had I was so lucky I had one friend in LA I messaged him and he just happened to be like I've just gotten

to a hotel I'm home for the day get a taxi here come chill so that's how that went down so I definitely trust me Laura I was not lying to you I was just as disappointed as you are I am this yes look I I thought you had been added on social media we were gonna I was gonna pick that bone off the podcast and my sweet is just being back here seeing you guys wearing cans it's amazing I mean it's what a time to be alive I've missed you guys I didn't think I'd ever say that but I really miss you guys well we have missed you and we've missed your love okay my sweet no my suck for the week my suck my week's been pretty good that's great okay actually really good I haven't really had a suck this week um what about how we just went to three different cafes to get you soy

milk and you you were a soy snob I said no to three cafes I was like bro let's just let's just sit down and have coffee I don't know if anybody else can relate to this but like I'm not a coffee snob I'm a milk snob I only like a specific brand of soy milk that's what I am so I have to go to certain cafes well not certain I have to go to every cafe and ask until you find it and it's really embarrassing I go hi excuse me what sort of swim do you use and then they tell you and you're like thanks bye I go oh okay sorry like I'm allergic to that one loser what a loser I hate me as well it's okay if you hate me I hate me too okay well what's your sweet okay my sweet for the week is yesterday was father's day and I just I love Matt he's the best so lucky

vomiting my mouth okay we had a really cute father's day I was looking through photos on the plane on the way over here and i just can't believe how much the girls have grown they're like so big lola did get fat shamed at the doctors though for her 18 month injections so they've got to stop fat shaming that child she's so cute she's the cutest thing ever and also just being here in cairns i'm so i mean i feel so grateful that we get to work with awesome brands flight center who's made this whole thing possible tomorrow we have a freaking funny and awesome episode for you guys that is all coming and then that is it for us guys well you know the drill tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love doesn't it feel good to say that again

because we love her We'll be right back.